Chinese Student Kills American Overseas, Posts $2 Million Bail

 

by on Friday, March 8, 2013

 

Xu Yichun, a Chinese study abroad student in Seattle, Washington who crashed into an American while speeding in a residential area.

 

From NetEase:

 

Chinese Study Abroad Student Hits and Kills American, Posts 2 Million USD Bail

 

SAN FRANCISCO (People.com.cn) – American local media are reporting that the mother of a 19-year-old Chinese international student, whose speeding in Seattle of King County in Washington state caused one death and injured four local residents, has posted the astronomical 2 million USD bail to get her son released. Prosecutors were worried that the foreign student would jump bail but nonetheless allowed the release.

 

According to a Seattle Times report, in 2012 November, Xu Yichun, a Chinese international student studying at the South Puget Sound Community College in Seattle, was driving his newly purchased Mercedes-Benz C350 with four other students on their way back to the apartment from grocery shopping. Xu Yichun did not stop at a stop sign and broadsided a car driving towards him, causing severe injuries to the other driver, 25-year-old American female Brenda Gomez-Zapata, who died of her injuries 9 days after being taken to the hospital, with the other three passengers in car being severely injured as well.

 

Brenda Gomez-Zapata, a 25-year-old American who died after a car accident involving Xu Yinchun, a Chinese international student in Seattle, Washington.

 

 

 

The police investigation found that at the time, Xu Yichun was driving his car at over 60 mph, when the residential area’s speed limit was 30 mph. Xu Yichun told police that he was driving only a little faster [than the speed limit] and it was only because his GPS navigation system showed that he had taken the wrong road that he had made a U-turn.

 

The police then found out that Xu Yichun does not actually hold a Washington driver’s license, nor an international driver’s license. He confessed to police that although he has a driver’s license in China, he has never driven in the United States before.

Xu was arrested and taken into custody by the police. King County prosecutors on 2012 November 14th charged him with 6 offenses, including one count of vehicular manslaughter, three counts of vehicular assaults, and two counts of reckless endangerment. On December 6th, this case will be heard for the first time at the King County Superior Court located at the regional justice center in Ken